PlayStation.Blog » Philippe Morinhttp://blog.us.playstation.com
The official PlayStation Blog for news and video updates on PS3, PS4, PSN, PS Vita, PSPSun, 02 Aug 2015 16:48:56 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3Outlast Whistleblower DLC Available Today on PS4http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/05/06/outlast-whistleblower-dlc-available-today-on-ps4/
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/05/06/outlast-whistleblower-dlc-available-today-on-ps4/#commentsTue, 06 May 2014 19:00:57 +0000http://blog.us.playstation.com/?p=131996Three years ago, the team here at Red Barrels decided to strike out on our own and create a game we could be proud of, and thanks to the nearly two million of you who have played the game on PS4, we feel like we’ve achieved our goal… and hopefully scared a lot of you in the process.

When we started working on Whistleblower, we knew we wanted to expand on the story, providing some memorable new encounters, new sources of terror, and some answers to the mysteries brought to light in Outlast.

As Waylon Park, the whistleblower who emailed Miles Upshur, you’ll witness psycho killers and asylum security face off as all hell truly breaks loose. Survive, and you may just have a chance to expose the terrible secrets at the heart of Mount Massive and unmask the true face of the Murkoff Corporation for all the world to see.

Whistleblower will be available for download on PS4 today for $8.99. Try not to worry your friends and neighbors with all the screaming!

– The RB Team

]]>http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/05/06/outlast-whistleblower-dlc-available-today-on-ps4/feed/26http://blog.us.playstation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/outlast-promo-image.jpg3.71Co-Founder, Red Barrels260Outlast Out Today: Survival Horror on PS4http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/02/04/outlast-out-today-survival-horror-on-ps4/
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/02/04/outlast-out-today-survival-horror-on-ps4/#commentsTue, 04 Feb 2014 16:00:07 +0000http://blog.us.playstation.com/?p=124271Red Barrels. Our first game, Outlast, is coming to PS4 today, and I’m excited to share that those of you who are PlayStation Plus subscribers will be able to download it completely for free.]]>Hello gamers! I’m Philippe Morin, one of the co-founders of Red Barrels. Our first game, Outlast, is coming to PS4 today, and I’m excited to share that those of you who are PlayStation Plus subscribers will be able to download it completely for free.

Outlast itself is a survival-horror game created by a team of 11 people with one common goal: to scare the *bleep* out of you.

Here’s the story so far…

In the remote mountains of Colorado, horrors wait inside Mount Massive Asylum. A long-abandoned home for the mentally ill, the facility was recently re-opened by the “research and charity” branch of the transnational Murkoff Corporation. Taking advantage of the Asylum’s history and remote location, they’ve been operating in strict secrecy. That is, they were until the reporter arrived.Acting on a tip from an anonymous source, independent journalist Miles Upshur has broken into the facility, and what he is about to discover inside will walk a terrifying line between science and religion, nature and something entirely other. Trapped with nightmares old and new, his only hope of escape will lie with the terrible truth at the heart of Mount Massive.

So, in short, you’re a journalist who’s found himself in a very wrong place at the very wrong time. You can’t hope to defend yourself against the mutated patients of the asylum, so you have to sneak, run, and hide… or die. We’ve done our best to create a memorable roller-coaster ride, one that entertains, scares, and leaves you craving more.

In fact, one of the most fun things about watching players make their way through Outlast has been watching the terrified looks on their faces, so we decided to step things up a notch. Newly added on PS4 is a difficulty level we call “insane.” If you feel brave enough to pick this mode, you’ll have very low health, very few batteries, no checkpoints, and no chance to save your game. It’s do or die. Survive or start again.

So here it is – turn off the lights, crank up the sound, and hold tight to your controller, because true horror is coming straight to your console today.

We can’t help if you end up needing new underwear, but if you’ve got any comments or questions please post them below or poke us on Twitter or Facebook. We hope you enjoy the game!

]]>http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/02/04/outlast-out-today-survival-horror-on-ps4/feed/167http://blog.us.playstation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/outlast.jpg4.27Co-Founder, Red Barrels1674Outlast Will Scare the S*** Out of You on PS4http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/06/10/outlast-will-scare-the-s-out-of-you-on-ps4/
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/06/10/outlast-will-scare-the-s-out-of-you-on-ps4/#commentsTue, 11 Jun 2013 02:25:06 +0000http://blog.us.playstation.com/?p=108243Hi, I’m Philippe Morin from Red Barrels! Together with co-founders David Chateauneuf and Hugo Dallaire, we started an indie studio for one reason: to use our experience working on games like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Assassin’s Creed to make the horror game we’ve been talking about with each other for years. We’re all big horror fans, especially David, and the game we wanted to make, a realistic survival horror game, wasn’t the type of thing any big companies were willing to take a risk on. So we’re taking the risk ourselves with Outlast, a survival horror, stealth-based game set in an abandoned asylum, coming to PS4 next year!

The best games make you feel something, some type of emotion that sticks with you after you’re done playing. And fear is one of the most powerful emotions we can have as human beings. So for us, to make the best game possible, we know that we have to scare the s*** out of you. We’re trying to do that in a number of different ways, but where we start is with the design. In Outlast you play as a journalist with no weapons or fighting ability. You’re powerless and vulnerable: there’s actually a good reason to be afraid, because you can be hurt (or eviscerated). So, like in real life, your best option to survive is to run or hide. Using our past experience, we’re making those mechanics fun (but hopefully nerve-wracking!), giving your character some parkour-style moves and tweaking the AI so that enemies are smart about looking for you.

Design elements were the first step we took in order to terrify you, but we’re going farther. We partnered with a scientific consulting firm called Thwacke to get real-world data on mental illness and treatment techniques and make an authentic environment. Since Outlast is set in an asylum and your enemies are escaped mental patients, we felt it was important to portray our characters and setting in a realistic way, beyond just characters chasing you on a map. From the layout of the asylum to how enemies act, most of the game is based on real-world asylums. While we have some unexpected surprises waiting in the shadows, giving players as realistic a setting as possible makes the fear more tangible.

I mentioned before that we’re huge horror fans at Red Barrels. We spend hours watching classic and new movies and playing games like Amnesia – for fun and for inspiration. Immersing ourselves in horror has made it a little harder to sleep each night, but has also given us a lot of ideas. For instance, one of the things that makes a character like Jason or Michael Myers so frightening is their unstoppable drive – no matter what you do, they always keep coming to kill you. Outlast has a similar character, with some twists. More generally, what we’ve learned from countless hours trying to scare ourselves is that fear is all about setting expectations. When you start to walk up to a dark, Victorian building, you prepare yourself to be afraid; all that needs to happen after that is something to activate that fear, like a sudden movement or a creepy visual. Getting you into this state of expectation is something we care a lot about – as you can see from our PAX East booth design!

Fear is a weird thing. At PAX East, we had people coming out of our booth with many different reactions: some were giggling nervously, others were white and trembling, and others even came out joyfully discussing impaled corpses. We loved it; the different ways people express fear are really interesting to see, because each different reaction means that a person is having a personal, emotional experience with Outlast. Every designer wants their game to have an impact on how you feel, and we’re committed to making you feel as terrified as possible! Look out for more information about Outlast before our PS4 launch late next year.